Nikon Transfer 1.5.3 corrupts D800 NEF files. I have used it to transfer two of my photo sessions and the previews were fine, but the NEFs were actually corrupted and could not be opened. I could extract the basic JPG out of the NEFs, but I want the RAW data to fine tune the pictures. Does anyone know how to fix the NEF (header maybe ?) or extract and use the raw actual data ?

Are you sure they are corrupt? If you use old software (Nikon Transfer 1.5.3 is from back in 2010) to transfer files then i guess i just have to ask the obvious: "what software/version are you using that fails to open/edit them?".

The D800 comes with a compatible version of ViewNX, which gave me an error at first installation attempt. I was in a hurry and opted for Nikon Transfer at the time, without suspecting it will corrupt the files (all seemed fine, including seeing the previews).

I believe the RAW data is still there.

Why I used Nikon Transfer is not the issue here, but how to access the RAW data from the corrupted files.

I asked Nikon for support to repair the corrupted NEF files. They are still investigating and don't have a solution for my problem yet.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to someone who does programming involving NEF files ? All I need is a simple tool to fix the files or extract the RAW data. Nikon is unlikely to build one just for me...assuming my problem is isolated.

Pure bad luck - this is the only time my portable backup was not available. My computer backups were based on the same Nikon Transfer copies, so they are no good. The SanDisk utility cannot repair the NEFs, only unerase them, so copying the corrupted ones to an SD card would not help.

I like your optimism, but even that optimism can't work wonders this time - I already recovered everything that was possible from the cards. The first session and part of session two were completely overwritten.

@Janoch, yes I tried restoring the metadata but it didn't work so I compared two copies (good and bad) with winmerge. Both had the basic JPG section (at different offsets), but there seems to be significant other changes in the data section of the corrupted file against a good copy.

I will investigate more on DCRAW, but I see it doesn't have D800 support yet.

FOV, I ran into the EXACT same problem - If you come up with a solution, let me know. I've tried many things, including putting the files back onto an SD card and attempting to re-transfer with NX2, but to no avail (once NX1 has transferred the files, they don't seem to read as NEF files anymore - except by Capture NX (or NX2) which will open the files (albeit much smaller copies) and will NOT save them out as NEF files.

I could not wait for NEF repairing anymore. I had to use the embedded JPG files for all the NEFs I could not recover from the card. It is the only solution I am aware of so far. Should a solution be revealed later, I will let everyone know about it. Thanky you all for your support.

@bobcooley, FYI you can extract the full size embedded JPGs with exiftool using a .bat script like: "for %%E in (*.NEF) do exiftool -b -jpgfromraw -w jpg %%E"

I suspect that you have thrown out this aged version of transfer, and replaced it eather by something supplied with the camera or viewnx2 2.3.1 by now (it has transfer build into it for convinience..) ?

I would never have expected/ trusted this outdated software to know what to do with your brand new D800 files i guess..

I was shooting with my D800 this past week and when I was downloading my card at the end of the day, I noticed that about 80 images were corrupted [and file names altered]. As they are right now they cannot be opened by LR,PS, etc.

Example File Name: DSÿ_41ÿ2.NEÿ

They are close to 50mb in size, so I feel like the data is there, however everything I have attempted has failed.

spraynpray said:
So you obviously don't have any back up copies anywhere then - bummer.

What about copying them to SD and using the Sandisk recovery utility?

I know this is an old thread now, but having just read through it quickly for the first time, doesn't Nikon transfer just 'copy' the files from your card to your chosen drive? How were the original NEF's on the memory card corrupted? Maybe I missed the explanation for this somewhere, but I would have thought you could just drag and drop the files from the card (not using transfer) to your computer, and them open them in your chosen editing package. What am I missing?

Sorry to weigh in late. The problem program here - Nikon Transfer 1.5.3 - is a stand alone program that is no longer supported and has not been updated for the D800. The issue of 1.5.3 corrupting files is a known issue - don't use it.

Nikon View NX2 has an embedded program - Nikon Transfer. There is no version number and it is only available as an embedded program.

Nikon Transfer (the embedded version) does simply transfer files, but it also can edit or add to the EXIF information. You can drag and drop files but it is a little more cumbersome if you are using renaming functions or adding EXIF information during transfer.

Once the files are corrupted, I don't think there is a way to fix them.